The sudden feeling of change was what Sora first felt when he and Kairi were just about to land in Edge, after flying on their riders for several minutes. He knew it was most likely because they're appearance was changing, since that happened last time, so he knew that the world wasn't in that horrible of conditions since they were still changing appearance. The first time they came to this world, it was in such bad condition that they didn't even change appearance, so the fact that they were changing was a semi-good sign.
When they both landed an unsummoned their armors, they both saw that they were still in the same attire they wore the last time they were here: Sora in his dark blue SOLDIER uniform and Kairi in her short white tank top with black pants and spenders.
Before the two could say anything to each other, the two looked around the city. It seemed it was late at night in this world, with not a soul in the streets. Sora began to get worried at this point, even before in Edge when it was this late at night, there were still at least some people in the streets, and the fact that there were none scared him.
"Do you think Cloud and the others are here?" Kairi asked him, adjusting her suspenders.
"I'm not sure, if no one is in the streets I doubt they would just stay inside Seventh Heaven, they would want to know what's going on." He said. "Unless…"
"I know what you're thinking and you better stop thinking about that now," Kairi protested. "They are fine Sora, last time I talked to Yen Sid, he told me Cloud was just about ready to take his Mark of Mastery Exam, nothing is going to stop him. He wouldn't let any of those weird soldiers touch any of them."
"I hope so…" Sora trailed off, turning to Kairi as he did so. However, when he looked behind her, he noticed something odd, which caused him to squint his eyes. For a brief moment, he could have worn he saw a shadow appear on the floor close by a building, its presence hardly visible due to the small amount of lighting. He didn't know how he managed to spot the shadow, or what it really was, but he wasn't going to take any chances.
"Kairi, get behind me." Before he even gave her a chance to do so, Sora took Kairi by the arm and pulled her behind him, summoning his keyblade in the process. "Who's there?!"
For a moment, nothing came out from behind the building, which lead Sora and Kairi to believe that he was going crazy. But, after a few short seconds, a figure finally reappeared from behind the building, coming out so that she was in Sora and Kairi's full view.
The woman that appeared before them stood her ground, showing the two with her body movements that she was not planning on going anywhere. She wore a long, white lab coat that went just past her knees and, underneath it, she wore a two piece outfit that was red and black. Her ginger hair was pulled back in a high ponytail but several parts of her bangs dangled lose in front of her face, highlighting the glasses that she wore. What was different about her was that the upper left side of her body appeared unusable for the most part, with her arm behind made out of metal and her left eye being closed permanently.
And it took this long for Sora to notice that she had a gun in her right hand.
"Who are you?" She demanded to know. "State your business here!"
Flashbacks of Vincent using his gun so flawlessly appeared in Sora's mind, making him worry if she could use a gun just as well as he could. So, he put his hands up in defense and unsummoned his keyblade. "We aren't here to hurt anyone," he stated. "I'm Sora and this is Kairi, we are friends of some of the people here and are just wondering where they are!"
The woman squinted her good eye before she put away her gun. "My apologies, I was not aware that other heroes of the keyblade were arriving." She stated.
Knowing that she was safe, Sora allowed Kairi to come out from behind him and stand next to him instead. "Others?" She questioned.
"That is classified information," the woman said suddenly. The two keybladers shrugged it off quickly, figuring that it was just the Turks she was referring too. "Let's start over," she began. "I'm Shalua; I am one of the highest ranked scientists at the WRO."
Sora and Kairi looked to each other confused. "WRO?" They said in unison.
She squinted her good eye again. "You mean… You don't know who we are?" They shook their heads. "The World Regenesis Organization?"
"Oh, so you mean you are like the Restoration Committee?" Kairi asked. "You try and restore the world back to how it used to be?"
Shalua nodded. "Are they coming then?" Sora asked. "The WLA I mean… Are you allies with them?"
She shook her head. "They are our allies and we did call for their assistance, but they have other things to attend to unfortunately." Shalua explained. "Since forming, the WLA has also formed alliances with several other worlds. Last time we spoke, they were on Spira dealing with a threat there, not able to come to our assistance yet."
"Oh…" Sora continued. "Is that were Cloud and the others are?"
"No actually," Shalua said. "They are currently in another town south of here. While they are not official members of the WRO, they are considered our allies, and we asked them if they could check on other towns to make sure Deepground hasn't purged anymore of them."
Sora inhaled a breath of relief when she confirmed at Cloud, Tifa, and the others were alright.
"What's Deepground?" Sora and Kairi asked.
Shalua shook her head with a smile. "You are trying to tell me that you are allies of the WLA but yet you don't know what Deepground is?" Silence. "Doesn't matter I suppose. Anyway, Deepground is a military group that was created by Shinra to create Super Soldiers. We believed they were wiped out after the meteor hit, but in truth they hid deep underground the Shinra building, surviving."
"Is… That why the city is so empty?" Sora asked with a worried look on his face.
Shalua looked down. "Unfortunately so," she admitted. "Deepground is mindlessly killing and kidnapping people, and we are still trying to find out why they are doing so."
"Maybe Shinra would know," Kairi suggested. "Have you tried contacting him yet?"
"Please, like we would want him back here," Shalua snapped. "He's partial the reason why this is happening, and truthfully, I want nothing to do with him."
The two keybladers could tell that this was the real reason why Rufus didn't come back to live in Edge after the alliance with Stark and Merlin.
"Well, if you need any help, we are willing to assist in any way possible." Sora smiled. "What do you need us to do? Is the reason you're here because you looking for Deepground right now?"
"Actually no," Shalua shook her head. "I have other business here."
"And what is that? We can help you with that," Kairi volunteered.
"That will not be necessary," Shalua said. "I am the only one who can find… My reason to live. Now, if you excuse me, I am going to go do that."
Shalua began to walk away, but Sora stopped her saying, "Wait! I know we can't help you with… that, but maybe we can stick together, have each other's backs. If Deepground shows up, me and Kairi fight him for you while you keep looking. In the end, doesn't that benefit both the WRO and you?"
Shalua turned to Sora with a pensive look on her face. Sora could hear her humming in thought all the way from the distance she walked.
"I suppose… That could work." She admitted finally. "Fine, just please listen to what I say. But if we find another one of my coworkers, I think I'll send you two with them. While I am thankful for the assistance, I think you should speak to my boss as well before you become our official allies, which seems what you two were hoping." Sora and Kairi nodded in response. "That's what I thought, so if we run into them, I'll send them off with you to meet with my boss."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Sora said with Kairi nodding next to him.
"Good," Shalua said. "Now then, let's get going."
…
"RIKU DUCK!" Xion yelled at her boyfriend. The two of them were currently fighting off heartless in the world called Ivalice, which was overrun with them, while trying to find the Turks. Xion was fighting in new Iron Woman suit (A/N: picture Pepper Pott's rescue armor from the comics) when she saw several neoshadow heartless appear behind Riku.
Riku ducked just in time for Xion to blast the creatures away with her repulsor rays from her hands. Thankfully, those neoshadows were the last of the heartless, finally giving the two time to breathe.
"Jezz, no wonder the Turks were called here," Riku commented. "What's with all the heartless?"
"Beats me," Xion replied. She had to admit, while it was overrun with heartless, Ivalice was a beautiful world, one of the prettiest ones she has seen in a while. The two had found their way into a town with tall and beautifully made buildings with a brick pathway to guide them. In the center of the town, there was a huge castle where Xion just barely could see the form of a tall figure with a smaller one standing next to him, who she could notice was a father and daughter. She figured that they were the rulers of the world.
"We should just focus on finding the Turks," she continued. "Maybe we should head—"
Xion stopped talking when they heard the noise of an explosion. The two quickly turned in the direction of the explosion to see a huge puff of black smoke not too far away from them.
"Looks like we found them," Riku said before he and Xion quickly ran in the direction of the smoke. After turning several corners and going down several alleys, the two found themselves at the edge of a battle between men and women in black suit uniforms and several heartless.
"Damn it Lea!" They heard a voice said, who they figured was Tseng. "I thought I told you not to bring out the Chakrams!"
It was then when Xion and Riku noticed the huge pillar of fire that quickly appeared between the people in suits and the heartless, but one of the people was on the other side of the flames, who was obviously Lea. While he had become a keyblade wielder, and was close to becoming a Keyblade Master under Roxas (who had received his Mark of Mastery under Yen Sid and was currently the master of Namine and Lea respectively), but when the former nobody had his Chakrams, his fire power was increased greatly. They all figured it was due to the fact that the Chakrams were made especially for fire purposes while the keyblade was for a mix of abilities. Lea must have thought the heartless were becoming to much and just summoned his Chakrams to try and burn them to death.
"Riku, Xion?" A voice said to the side of them. They quickly turned to see Roxas, now wearing his official Turk uniform, walking over to them with a shocked expression on his face. "What are you two doing here?"
"Sightseeing," Riku said sarcastically as they overheard Elena and Rude yelling at Lea through the wall of fire. "We need your help."
"I don't know if you noticed but we are pretty preoccupied here!" A voice, who they believed was Lea at first said. They turned their heads to see Reno, carrying a bucket of water from the nearby fountain to try and put some of the flames out so they could assist Lea on the other side.
"I can't hold them off by myself all day you know!" Lea's voice said, just barely being heard from the other side of the crackling flames.
"Well you should have thought about assistance before you summoned the huge wall of flaming death!" Reno said with a sassy tone.
The last thing they saw was Namine trying to use a blizzard spell to try and put out the fire before they looked back at Roxas. "Edge is in trouble," Xion said. "Yuffie called us, people are being killed and or kidnapped."
"We tried calling you but apparently you didn't get your phone from Merlin yet since you didn't pick up," Riku added.
"Actually we did get our phones, but as you can see we really don't have time to answer them!" Roxas yelled over the screams of the other Turks putting out some of the fire. Quickly, Roxas pulled out his phone, flashing it to Xion and Riku, before he slid it back in his pocket.
"So can you help Edge or not?" Xion asked, ignoring Roxas' comment.
"Sorry, but we can't, Shinra's orders." Roxas replied. "He told us one of his buddies from this world called in because of the heartless issue. He said they just started spawning everywhere ever since the princess of this world turned four a few days ago and began taking magic training courses. The heartless are preventing her teacher from training her so they need the heartless cleared out so he can go back to doing his job."
When Roxas said these words, it made Riku began to think. To him, the princess was the reason the heartless were showing up if they only started appearing when she began taking magic courses. But what power could a four year old do that would make them all appear like that? Did she learn how to preform light attacks and that light made them want to come here?
"Well how can we get the problem cleared out now because Edge really needs our help!" Xion yelled. "Yuffie said the WLA is occupied right now on Spira so they need as much reinforcements as they can and we are some of the main people on that list!"
Roxas sighed before he turned to the other Turks, who had managed to make a small part of the fire clear out so they could go to the other side to help Lea fight off the heartless there. "The only option is for you two to help us to get the heartless out of here quicker. Once they are cleared out, we'll go to Edge."
Riku turned to Xion, who shrugged. Edge needed their help now, but if clearing out the heartless here first was the only way to get reinforcements to Edge, then so be it.
"Fine, let's get to Lea to start fighting off the heartless then," Riku said as he, Roxas and Xion began walking towards the wall of fire. However, as Xion and Roxas walked ahead of him, Riku looked back at the castle, which he assumed was where the princess was. Moving his eyes fast, he noticed the outline of two figures, the father and daughter that Xion noticed earlier, and assumed it was the princess and the king.
Even though she was so far away, Riku could feel the light within her. Maybe it wasn't the magic moves she was learning; maybe it was her the heartless were attracted too. But how could such a young girl attract so many heartless?
Riku quickly pushed the thought out of his mind to fight off the heartless to get to Edge sooner.
Sigh... School started again guys, so blame that for not updating earlier :( [Teen Wolf and Agents of Shield coming back on may also be blamed for this]
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the introduction of Shalua! I don't know why, but I really liked her in DoC. She is just an interesting character to me. That, and there was a ton of foreshadowing in this chapter that should be revealed later in the story. Anyone who finds them gets bonus points! Leave predictions in reviews please!
Also, quick note. Yes, Roxas, Lea, and Namine are no longer wearing their old attire and have swapped it for Turk uniforms. As for how each of them looks: Roxas' looks like Rude's, Namine's looks like Elena's, and, of course, Lea's looks like Reno's. And yes, Xion isn't/not going to be a Turk, she in fact is taking up another occupation that should be revealed later in the story.
BTW, in the world of Kingdom Hearts news, we got some great ones! Hayley Joel Osment, who voices Sora, said he would love to return to voice Sora in KH3! Also, interesting note, he said that voice acting was one of the last things they do for the game, but he also said that he would probably start this summer or later... Huh, is KH3 in a later development then we thought it was if he could start at the earliest this summer, also noting that voice acting is one of the last things they do? I doubt it, but we can dream, can't we?
And before some of you ask, yes, the character we all know and love is coming in next chapter :D THE HYPE IS REAL!
So please R&R and look out for the next chapter!